Empirical analysis of Japanese non-life insurance firms : the impact of auto insurance upon the Performance of the firms

我们收集了1970年至2003年日本非寿险形式的面板数据。这些公司包括Tokyo Kaijyou、Sonpo Japan、Mitsui Sumitomo、Nihon Koua、艾奥伊Sonpo、日新加塞、Nichidou加塞、Fuji加塞、Kyouei加塞、Asahi加塞和Nissei Douwa。对于每个公司，计算了以下变量：汽车保险比例=汽车保险收入/总收入汽车保险份额=公司汽车保险收入/11家公司汽车保险总收入汽车保险价格=汽车保险收入/汽车保险保单数量资本成本，劳动力成本和代理成本是非寿险公司的三大成本。我们使用了一个看似不相关的回归模型，该模型由一个超越对数成本函数和三个成本分摊方程组成。成本效率是通过虚拟变量的系数来衡量的。将计算出的无效率转化为从1（最低成本无效率）到12（最高无效率）的等级，并引入有限因变量模型来处理这些兰德数据。我们使用了一个有序概率模型来评估解释变量对无效率等级的影响。这些解释变量是与汽车保险有关的上述三个变量和其他几个变量。从排序概率模型的估计结果来看，汽车保险的三个变量对衡量成本效率的排名有显著影响。因此，我们得出结论，汽车保险对日本非寿险公司的业绩有重大影响。

We collected panel data of the Japanese non-life insurance forms from 1970 to 2003. These firms consist of Tokyo Kaijyou, Sonpo Japan, Mitsui Sumitomo, Nihon Koua, Aioi Sonpo, Nisshin Kasai, Nichidou Kasai, Fuji Kasai, Kyouei Kasai, Asahi Kasai and Nissei Douwa. For each firm, the following variables were computed.Proportion of auto insurance = Revenue from auto insurance/total revenueAuto insurance share = Revenue from auto insurance for the firm/Total revenue from auto insurance of 11 firmsPrice of auto insurance = Revenue from auto insurance/No of auto insurance policiesCapital cost, labor cost and agency cost are the three major costs on the non-life insurance firms. We used a Seemingly-unrelated regression model, which consists of a translog cost function and three cost-share equations. Cost efficiency was captured by the coefficients of the dummy variables. The computed inefficiencies were transformed into ranks which varies from 1(lowest cost inefficiency) to 12(highest inefficiency).A limited-dependent variable model was introduced to manipulate these rand data. We used an ordered-probability model to Evaluate the impact of explanatory variables upon the inefficiency ranks. These explanatory variables are the three variables concerning auto insurance shown above and several others.From the result of the estimation of the ordered-probability model, we observed that the three variables of auto insurance have an significant effect upon the ranks which measure cost inefficiency. Thus, we concluded that auto insurance has major impact upon the performance of the Japanese non-life insurance firms.